Even in the year of 1660s and 2000s graphics cards, the 1080 and 1080 Ti still manage to hold their own with an iron grip on the market.

Now we’re going to take a closer look at each one.

Really quick, though, I should explain why there are different models of the same cards.

Basically, a third-party such as MSI, Sapphire, or XFX will buy either stock or custom PCBs (the circuit board of the GPU) from the manufacturers, and then develop their own cooling solutions and BIOS firmware for the cards.

Because of this, each model will vary in cooling capacity and both memory and core clock speeds set by that third-party.

However, while memory speed and clock speed can be reset and/or factory overclocked by that third-party, the memory count and core count cannot be changed since it’s specific to each type of graphics card (eg. GTX 1070 vs GTX 1080).

For a short side note before we forget. Just in case you didn’t know, using a high-power graphics card with a relatively low power processor will cause a bottleneck and hinder your possible performance.

So when purchasing a graphics card such as the GTX 1080 Ti, make sure you have chosen something along the lines of an LGA 1151 i7 or i9 of any kind, or one of the newer Ryzen 7s or 9s.

ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti OC: Best Performance

The best performer out of the GTX 1080 Ti’s so far seems to be the ever-popular Asus ROG Strix GTX 1080 Ti OC.

After looking at benchmarks to compare a bunch of different high-end 1080 Ti models, we have determined that’s on average the Asus ROG Strix model has the highest rated performance on average out of similarly priced cards.

The best possible way to get a good deal on it is buying used on sites such as eBay.

If you do decide to purchase from Amazon, though, they are carrying used units in Very Good and Like New condition for $800USD and below.

Being that the 2000-series is pretty much phased in at the moment, the 1000-series is almost completely phased out but not enough to make the prices drop down too much.

So finding this card at a reasonable price new is basically unheard of, and we suggest shooting for a newer 2000-series if you refuse to buy anything short of brand new hardware.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini: Lowest Profile

For this category, we searched around to find the smallest possible 1080 Ti you can purchase online, and the search came up pretty promising. The Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini is the smallest GTX 1080 Ti you can buy.

Measuring in at only 211mm x 41mm x 125mm you would be hard-pressed to find any GTX 1080 Ti of even close to a similar size, this thing is just unbelievably tiny. For your next Mini-ITX build, this GPU is a must-have simply because of its small size allowing for amazing power in one little, tiny box.

And don’t let its stature fool you, this puppy packs a punch. Its 1506MHz base core clock and its 1620MHz base memory clock put it at odds with our lowest-priced pick but with a way better cooling solution. So expect to not only get the best in size but substantial performance as well.

Be sure not to skimp out on the power supply though, this little fella’s still got a big stomach.

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 Hybrid Gaming: Best Cooling

If you expected an air cooler coming in for the best cooling sport, you’d be dead wrong. However little the decrease in temperature is for liquid cooling, we still gotta give the best cooling spot to the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 Hybrid Gaming.

The SC2 Hybrid gaming edition of the 1080 Ti comes equipped with, as the name would suggest, a hybrid cooling solution.

Sporting a blower-style cooler you normally wouldn’t expect a card like this to take the spot of “best cooling” on any list, but alas here we are.

It just so happens that the blower cooler isn’t its only weapon.

The blower cooler is purely for cooling the memory chip and VRMs (power delivery), and they do a great job at just that.

The real glory of this bad boy is the included AIO 120mm liquid cooler attached directly to the GPU die.

Hook this fan on the rear, front, or top of your case as an intake and you’ve got yourself an easy liquid cooling solution for your graphics card.

With how cool this card gets under load, maxing out near 75C-80C under full synthetic load but standing at about 45C-55C under average load, you can also expect to get amazing overclock potential out of it.

The base core clock sits pretty at 1556MHz and a base memory clock of 1670MHz, you’ll have a great starting ground to play off of.

PNY GeForce GTX 1080 Ti: Lowest Price

Our lowest priced pick this year is the PNY GeForce GTX 1080 Ti blower card. If you want the lowest price on Amazon for a GTX 1080 Ti this is the closest your going to get to finding it.

The PNY GeForce GTX 1080 Ti offers fairly good performance in terms of speeds, running at an 89MHz lower core clock than our top speed pick and a whopping 126MHz lower memory clock than or top speed pick. That cooler ain’t doin’ any wonders, though, so don’t expect it to be running anywhere near its potential.

I’m going to be completely honest with you; this is not a good card to buy. Forget price-to-performance, the performance is just bad at any price unless you get it used for a couple hundred bucks.

Blower style coolers are not good at cooling on any high-performance or near high-performance graphics card, they just do not provide enough cooling.

If you want the security of buying through Amazon because of their amazing support and return policies then we could maybe get behind purchasing this graphics card but be aware that it is still a used card that just passed Amazon’s quality check.

If you want a brand new model, be prepared to shell out some big bucks.

When considering buying a GPU such as a 1080 Ti for an amazingly low price, we strongly urge you to go for a used model on eBay as you can most likely find a better performance card with a better cooler than this blower.

Also, contrary to popular belief, eBay’s support is very helpful when returning items in case it arrives not as described.

How to Find a Good GTX 1080 Ti on eBay

eBay is known for its shady deals and rip-offs, but we can give you some ideas as to what you should look for in an eBay graphics card listing.

1. Check the amount available, as listings with many cards are more often than not old cryptocurrency mining cards that have been used to hell and back. Trust me, you don’t want an old mining card. Click here for more info on mining if you’re not sure why it’s bad to be used mining hardware.

2. Go to the seller’s profile and look for buyer reviews, since some users will buy cheap items for free reviews or just outright buy reviews

3. Make sure you read the description so that you know exactly what you are buying and can make a valid return request if the item is delivered not as described

Best Monitor for GTX 1080 Ti

When choosing a monitor for your 1080 Ti system, you would probably think you should get the most decked out high-end monitor you can possibly get right? Once again, the wool has been pulled over your eyes my friend.

There really is no need to head anywhere past 1440p on a 1080Ti for games unless you absolutely cannot have anything but the greatest 4k quality. So we just suggest sticking to a high refresh rate 1440p monitor.

Our top pick is the ASUS ROG PG279Q. It’s an awesome 1440p monitor with Freesync, stunning visuals, an impressive refresh rate, and a great price tag.

Best CPU for GTX 1080 Ti

There’s two different perspectives you can get when asking the “what’s the best CPU” for whatever graphics card pairing; and that’s performance vs. price.

Starting with the best performance choice there’s no other but the Intel i9-9900KF, which is the leading performer in gaming across the market.

If you’re looking for the best bang for your buck, the best option is the Intel i9-9700K if you’re buying brand new on Amazon or Newegg. For the used market, used 7700K and 8700K’s hold up fairly well.

Best Power Supply for GTX 1080 Ti

The GTX 1080 Ti is definitely one power hungry piece of hardware, but that’s to be expected. You’ve gotta get all that gaming power from somewhere.

The minimum required PSU wattage for most 1080 Ti’s is a massive 600W to 650W. Now, this doesn’t mean the 1080 Ti draws 600W to 650W of power, it just means that on average builds that include a 1080 Ti have a total power draw nearing that wattage.

With that said, our chosen power supply for the best power supply for a 1080 Ti is the 2018 model of the Corsair RMX series’ RM650x 80+ gold rated fully modular power supply.

Best Motherboard for GTX 1080 Ti

No, you don’t need to shell out hundreds of dollars on a top-of-the-line board, but that doesn’t mean you can go cheapo mode here either.

The motherboard should be able to support other high-end components that you should be using with your 1080 Ti. After all, the 1080 Ti is a high-end GPU, and it would only make sense to use it with other high-end components.

Our chosen motherboard for the 1080 Ti is the Asus Prime Z370-P II. It’s a solid all-around board that has plenty of awesome features.